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09/19/2007: Talking & Bleeding Skulls.

Happiness is walking through a department store and uncovering a skull-shaped “Bleeding Brains” candle…


Unhappiness is getting home, taking it out of the bag, and seeing a zombie version of said “Bleeding Brains” candle on the back of the box, which is approximately seven trillion times cooler than some everyday skull.


Happiest Possible Level of Happiness is finding out that you bought the zombie version and just didn’t know it.


Can’t wait to light him up. Even unused, it’s one of the prettiest items gracing our living room. But, when lit, he’s supposed to dribble out tons of bloody wax from his mouth, ears and eye sockets. I’d start the process now, but it seems like something I should hold off on until company comes over.

While I’m oh so happy to have lucked into my bleeding demon candle, I don’t mean to infer that skulls are bad news. In fact, today’s Countdown entry takes a look at one very nice skull, who talks and has blinking red eyes. Meet Talking Boris, a skull head who will say anything you tell it to say, even if it’s some obscenity-laced tirade about gasoline prices.


Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

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Discussion Thread: 102 comments

Yay I got first! Time to get drunk and read it… ^_^

Ghosted by Wysefool @ 09/19/2007 12:36 AM EDT

Oh. My. God. Where did you make that incredible find? I need one of those like nobody’s business. The missus would freak out if presented with a melting zombie head, and so would I. Needless to say that they would be two different kinds of freaks, but that’s what Halloween is all about.

Ghosted by Declan Dempsey @ 09/19/2007 12:37 AM EDT

3.97 at Wal-Mart.

Ghosted by Matt @ 09/19/2007 12:40 AM EDT

Oh man I want one!

Ghosted by mjgrass @ 09/19/2007 12:42 AM EDT

the zombie candle = cool
boris the “talking skull” = lame
what really interests me is the old disney channel magazine that boris was resting on. That was from when disney channel was good, when you had to pay extra for it! (or wait for the blessed free preview weekend)

Ghosted by maticdog @ 09/19/2007 12:45 AM EDT

Hey Matt, no topic today to discuss?

Ghosted by mjgrass @ 09/19/2007 12:48 AM EDT

I have a somewhat earlier version of the talking skull that I’ve completely given up trying to scare trick-or-treaters with. Kids wouldn’t even take the slightest notice of the thing, let alone attempt to decipher the garbled mess intended to be threats of death and dismemberment spewing from its clanking jaws.

Ghosted by Monte @ 09/19/2007 12:48 AM EDT

Monte: Might be a good thing, nowadays a parent would sue you for scaring their child too badly.

Ghosted by mjgrass @ 09/19/2007 12:51 AM EDT

Matt, how does the wax smell?

About 15 years ago I got the Hand of Glory version of these candles, and the smell when it was burning was bizarre. It was ultimately so off-putting I had to toss the candle. It was sort of sweet, waxy and oily all together, with a strange chemical over lay. I really want to get another candle like it, but that smell is something I can still remember a decade and a half later.

Ghosted by LemonWitch @ 09/19/2007 12:52 AM EDT

Hands Down, the coolest candle ive ever seen, hope they have them in my neck of the woods.
Awesome find Matt!

Ghosted by JoshC @ 09/19/2007 12:57 AM EDT

I own a Pirates of the Caribbean talking skull that I have on my door. I always wanted to scare people with it by saying my own phrases. So I ask you, Matt: Where did you find Boris? That things was tailor-made for me.

Ghosted by RageTreb @ 09/19/2007 1:01 AM EDT

I am so going to Wal-Mart to get one of those candles, be it the zombi-fied or skull-tacular version. I checked out the Hallo-selection at Target tonight, for the first time, and was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t pick up anything but plan on loading up the next time I hit up the store to grocery shop.

BTW, is anyone else sort of annoyed with the Taco Bell commercial that tries to sell us New Cheesy Beef Melts all to the tune of Modern English’s “I Melt With You”? Seeing people with eight inches of rubbery-looking strings hanging out of their mouths, representing “cheese”, is not appetizing. Yech.

Ghosted by Magic Toy @ 09/19/2007 1:01 AM EDT

That thing is pretty awesome.

Magic Toy, I hate that commercial. >:( Plus, I hate cheese.

Ghosted by Annette @ 09/19/2007 1:07 AM EDT

I want to remind you all that in 2 hours it will be TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY.

Demonic talking skulls are very appropriate!
Mwahahahaha!

Ghosted by Wysefool @ 09/19/2007 1:11 AM EDT

That skull/bleeding brain looks like a buy from Big Lots. Like this potential Halloween costumn.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t201/veggiemacabre/ImportedPhotos00001.jpg

Ghosted by Bill @ 09/19/2007 1:23 AM EDT

I got the skull candle last year for Halloween and kept that bitch in the bathroom till there was nothing left of it. That was love on first sight, that was. My roommie at the time kept reminding me how weird she thought it was that I insisted on keeping Halloween decorations hanging around all year round, but since they were pretty much confined to my bedroom and “my” bathroom (the hall bath, since she had her own private one), she didn’t complain too much. She just refused to use the hall bath as long as “that stupid skull thing” was in there. I actually went to Wal Mart earlier tonight, held the skull candle in my hand and decided to wait till I moved in 3 weeks to buy any decoartions. But, this shit’s starting to get uncanny. Why?

A couple of weekends ago I went to Target, went ga-ga over some new hanging Freddy puppet looking thing and talked myself out of buying it. Came home. Matt wrote an article about it.

Tonight–Went to Wal Mart. Saw the skull candle. Thought about it. Talked myself out of it. Came home. We all see what happened.

Ok, universe. I’m listening. But, I’m moving in 3 weeks. I gotta skrimp and save. As soon as I’m settled in, I’ll go nuts–have a MAJOR shopping spree. Swear to X-E. But, this is starting to get weird.

As for Boris the talking skull, I just can’t see myself shelling out 25 bucks for that. But, I’m really glad Matt did.

Ghosted by DJ D @ 09/19/2007 1:36 AM EDT

I want! I want!

Ghosted by LynnStarrrr @ 09/19/2007 2:13 AM EDT

That candle…is amazing. The expression makes me think of a zombie gangsta rapper. I guess tupac is (un)dead after all.

Ghosted by Ken @ 09/19/2007 2:38 AM EDT

Also, I think I need to get boris, if only to have him send laserbeak to spy on the autobots in his robotic voice.

Ghosted by Ken @ 09/19/2007 2:47 AM EDT

hell yeah. we actually have that zombie one in our living room right now. you want to watch the candle when it drops from his skull to the mouth, because it might tilt over and get messed up. but other than that it’s awesome.

Ghosted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 09/19/2007 3:06 AM EDT

ps and sorry to double post, but we got it at walgreens. just in case yall arent finding it at walmart. its at the other ‘wal’.

Ghosted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 09/19/2007 3:08 AM EDT

I saw the skeleton candle at Walmart, but not the zombie. Maybe I just saw the wrong side of the box. I’m kind of glad to hear that Boris is flawed, it makes it easier to resist running out and buying him. What a great addition to Talk Like a Pirate Day he would be, though.

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 09/19/2007 3:25 AM EDT

It’s scary as hell in the video but I can’t understand a word coming out of it’s mouth, maybe that makes it scarier.

Ghosted by Wysefoo @ 09/19/2007 3:31 AM EDT

Shiver me timbers!! That be a fine talkin’ skull ye has there… Arrrrr!!

And a lovely TLAPD t’ya all!!

Ghosted by Fungusmungus @ 09/19/2007 3:35 AM EDT

Its funny, but last year I got the finger puppets and skull candle at Walmart, and about 5 years earlier I got the bag of creepy crawlies I used as monsters in D&D games from Ames when they still existed.
Dammit Matt! You are supposed to show stuff I want to waste money on for no good reason, not remind me of doing it in years past!

But the skull candle rocks. It takes some time to get going though.

Ghosted by Bloodcat @ 09/19/2007 3:58 AM EDT

I’m loving the Halloween Jukebox Matt. Of all the outstanding songs, and the memories each are associated with, the highlight so far has been Dokken’s Dream Warriors. I owned Dokken’s “Back for the Attack” album (on cassette!) when I was a kid, maybe ten years old?

Ah, the memories that song brings back. I was thankfully “that kid” on the block that was able to get his hands on R-rated movies and show them to his underage friends. One of those films was A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Hence my love for that album and that song. Among classics like Predator, Aliens, Commando, Gremlins, The Goonies, The Terminator, Conan The Barbarian, Lethal Weapon, Star Wars, and other movies that I could tape off of HBO during their “free preview weekends”, or convince my movie-loving Dad to rent. Horror films held a special place in our hearts.

After all, these were the sick, depraved movies that my friends and I darn well knew that we had no right to view. As kids we felt like we were practically breaking the law when we watched R-rated flicks that featured stabbings, shootings, cyborg-on-human violence, chest-burstings, pipe-impalements, eyeball-gougings, limbs being severed, comet dust-guided big rigs running amok at truck stops, suicidal hero cops who weren’t faking it for their psych. pension, scary toy clowns hiding under beds, leather-clad bikers in a post-apocalyptic world searching for juice, high schoolers fighting off Russkies, Richard Dawson telling the hero he’d only be back in a “re-run”, Cody telling the knife-wielding punk to ‘try it again’, hearing the song Mr. Sandman after Laurie survived… again, wondered “what’s wrong with her eyes!” when we watched ED for the first time, saw Wolfman get kicked in the nards, learned that it was DEFINITELY wrong to feed them after midnight, were afraid at just how little gas was left in the chopper after Peter and Fran took off, and we found more than just a little in common with the character of Brad in Critters.

I’ll admit it. In 1987-88 I was the “president” of a small group of friends, a club if you will, that loved all of this stuff. Dokken’s Dream Warriors was sort of our theme song, if you could call it that. We didn’t really hold official meetings. We mostly just blew things up with fireworks, read Fangoria on the bus going to school, drew ghastly pictures and wrote short stories that would now get any kid expelled from school, and committed, in the post-Columbine world we live in. It was a simpler time I suppose. Instead of being afraid of what I wrote my teachers would smile at me, put on a brave face, and tell me that this might be a bit too violent for school, could I please re-write it without all the blood and guts. Again, the memories… sing tear sliding down the right cheek.

Thanks to this site I know I’m not the only kid who, by late September, was drawing up diagrams of how I could decorate my yard/porch during Halloween in order to freak out the highest number of kids.

Don’t even get me started on how cool Chainsaw and Dave were in Summer School.

Ghosted by Magic Toy @ 09/19/2007 4:43 AM EDT

First!!! Wait… no I’m not.

Ghosted by Lucky Mesmer @ 09/19/2007 7:32 AM EDT

Matt…the talking skull has potential…i would fiddle around with the sound levels and speak at a lower volume or hold the mic a little farther from your mouth, or it will be muffled…i learned that by playing nintendogs on my DS…you have to annunciate, and not like inhale the microphone

Ghosted by mandy_ghoul power_Reeves @ 09/19/2007 7:56 AM EDT

Hey Matt, you should be able to fire him up, and then when done, just put him in the freezer, this should let you take all the old wax off of him easily after about an hour in there. Then just pick up a new red candle to entertain friends…. thats how we do those wax pots…

Ghosted by Primus @ 09/19/2007 8:15 AM EDT

Lemonwitch I’ve bought a few of these exact candles over the past couple of Halloweens and they really have no smell besides the slight scent of ordinary wax.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day to all, ye scallywags!

Ghosted by fistpittingnork @ 09/19/2007 8:41 AM EDT

Matt: The skull lies.

Was that a Planescape: Torment reference? If so, I believe I am contractually obligated to begin hunting down and killing those I loosely perceive as your enemies. And/or having your man-babies.

Ghosted by Jedoc @ 09/19/2007 9:07 AM EDT

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/25046.html

Just released: a brand-new AVGN review of two Addams Family games!

Ghosted by TB Tabby @ 09/19/2007 9:17 AM EDT

This is what I get for going to bed early… I completely miss another great entry about bleeding heads and a talking skull. *sigh*

Make sure you put the zombie on something that’s easily cleaned or disposable!

Ghosted by Ben @ 09/19/2007 9:41 AM EDT

Man, if we had those zombie and skull candle for the biology club Halloween party, it would been a hit. Also, too bad that Boris is total let down. Speaking of Halloween, Matt is two Ghosts in your comic going to me back.

Ghosted by Kowl @ 09/19/2007 11:28 AM EDT

I live in an apartment building…next to the landlord and an old man. So, it kind of kills my crazy decorating desires for Halloween….but I DO want one of those zombie candles!!

Ghosted by Muppet Baby @ 09/19/2007 12:03 PM EDT

That candle reminds me one we got in college for our Halloween party of this big ghoulish hand that when lit, it’s skin would melt off and you’d see “bones” underneath…I remember we lit it in the middle of the afternoon,nobody was going to class or was done for the day and we were in awe of it just staring at it for a good half hour…

Ghosted by Melissa Y @ 09/19/2007 12:33 PM EDT

Gotta admit. As soon as i read ‘Boris the talking skull’ i figured it was another cheap prop that spewed the same corny 5 lines at the push of a button or motion sensor.

But the fact the company trusted us with our own creativity. What where they thinking, i can only imagine the stuff i’ll have Boris saying.

Ghosted by Dan @ 09/19/2007 12:38 PM EDT

I want to publicly declare my gratitude for the existence of X-E. I haven’t been this motivated to celebrate Halloween in years! Love it!!

Ghosted by Mandymax @ 09/19/2007 12:48 PM EDT

Dead candles tell no tales…

Ghosted by Invader Norbert @ 09/19/2007 1:04 PM EDT

Boris is one of those things that sound cool in theory, but never quite works out. I used to have a voice-changing megaphone when I was younger. I would play with it for about 5 minutes, get bored, and toss it back into the toybox until the next time I was really bored.

But that candle RULES!

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 09/19/2007 1:05 PM EDT

JLAJRC was it one of the megaphones with 3 or 4 voices? Alien, Robot, something else, and then normal voice modes?

Ghosted by fistpittingnork @ 09/19/2007 1:15 PM EDT

mattttt,

my halloween jutebawks won’t work :(

Oh and AWESOME candle, I’m going to every walmart in a 100 km radius to find one.

Ghosted by penmissile @ 09/19/2007 2:03 PM EDT

Magic Toy: That was my song with the fiance… until that stupid, stupid commercial came out! Now I can hardly stand to listen to it. Now our song is “Love Song” by the Cure. How melodramatic is that?! haha

Bill: You remind me of the bumblebee girl from Blind Melon’s “No Rain.” It’s a good look for you!

Matt: So what the hell was Boris actually saying? Singing? I’m going to guess it was Grim Grinning Ghosts from the Haunted Mansion or something? I don’t hear well enough to understand Boris skulls when they’re singing.

And Happy TLAP Day to everyone! Arrrrrr!

Ghosted by Special K @ 09/19/2007 2:22 PM EDT

Fisting: Yep. The exact same one.

Special K: Matt was singing the Garfield Halloween “What Should I Be” song. Not that you can tell from listening to Boris. If you listen closely, Matt’s voice can be heard occaisionally by itself. Also, the soundtrack is playing in the background.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 09/19/2007 2:28 PM EDT

I wasn’t singing — that was all Boris. I just held the microphone (bone) to the comp speakers.

Ghosted by Matt @ 09/19/2007 2:29 PM EDT

Bill: That picture nearly made me pee my pants. For a moment I wanted to set it as my desktop wallpaper… but thought that might be kind of weird. It’s definitely priceless though.

Ghosted by Heather @ 09/19/2007 2:37 PM EDT

Out of sheer curiosity, when you hold the “microbone” to Boris’s mouth, does it squawk at you? I’m not sure why I need to know that so badly right now.

By the way, listening to the jukebox is SO much more fun at work when you can quiz your co-workers while the boss is at lunch.

And since no one has said it in a while, I will:

41 days ’til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween
41 days ’til Halloween
Sil-ver Sham-rock

Ghosted by Special K @ 09/19/2007 2:51 PM EDT

Happy Halloween, click my name for Dracula hilarity

Ghosted by Fox @ 09/19/2007 2:59 PM EDT

I’m gonna break down and watch Garfield’s Halloween Adventure pretty soon…

Ghosted by Annette @ 09/19/2007 3:39 PM EDT

I’ve had one of those before. Be careful where you stick it because the wax ran out of the tray it was in, got all over the carpet and stained it (we got the wax itself up but that blood-red color wouldn’t come out).

Ghosted by Ladytink_534 @ 09/19/2007 4:05 PM EDT

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